Dick Goodwin was many things: a dedicated professor of botany who inspired generations of Connecticut College students and guided them into the world of plants, people and their ecology; a conservation visionary who helped to found The Nature Conservancy and who for more than five decades served as president of the Conservation Research Foundation, which provides "seed monies" for new conservation studies and projects worldwide; and an inspirational individual who lived life fully and gracefully with his wife Esther and committed his energies to applying what he preached.

Analyzing airborne LiDAR (i.e., laser remote sensing) data acquired by NASA in 2003, researchers found differences in measures of canopy structure in stands across the Prospect Hill tract at Harvard Forest. Canopy height and vertical diversity were related to the predominant species present and the intensity of wind disturbance from the 1938 hurricane and associated timber extraction efforts.